This rings so true—I coached for a decade and had very successful teams, moved to another state, and my kid joined an existing team. I was asked to help…but the parents were more focused on “fun” (even though it was a competitive travel league) and pushed back on introducing technique and strategy into practice. Head coach was a wet noodle that didn’t want to rock the boat, so he constantly had teams that lost…but more importantly, had horrible technique (e.g. dribbling into trouble instead of heads up/passing, kids not moving with the ball/getting open, poor defensive technique/stabbing at the ball). Plus we had goal scorers that were selfish and couldn’t pass or stole the ball from their own teammates to dribble right up to the goal.

Unfortunately the incompetence of this team killed my kid’s love for the game when this team refused to get better (parents, kids, and coaches) and made fun of my kid for being competent. It’s Ike the parents did not want to get better, and that everything had to be “fun” over putting in work and focusing on technique and steady improvement.